Reading marx and any writing from that day and age is a fucking headache. It's so far removed from modern english and with all the references to Marx's contemporary events you need like 2948392 footnotes to fucking understand anything. But nooooo we cant have a simplified version because that would warp his vision blah bluh bleh
Reading economic theory published today is a fucking slog, let alone economic theory from 150 years ago. I don’t think anyone is going “Well I was gonna spend my evening reading this economics textbook, but I think a more efficient use of my time would be to watch a twitch stream!”
You should read Marx, but don’t act like it’s filling the same need as watching silly people play video games on the internet
This is a very thoughtful post. I just want to add that not all twitch streams are playing videos games. There are a lot of twitch streams that are just a person talking to their camera and/or the twitch chat. For example, Matt Christman of chapo regularly goes to twitch to yell about Marxism for about an hour and then logs off. I have found that there are around 40-50 decent sized channels with people who just talk to their camera about leftism.
English translations of Marx are universally dogshit (I believe it's intentional, Anglo publishing industry is reactionary as hell)
But that's what Mao's for :mao-aggro-shining:
That's really not it, 19th century philosophy (and beyond really) is quite impenetrable without either reading the entirety of the context or a very good companion book. Like reading Frege's foundation of arithmetic was a struggle for me as a mathematician with some philosophy background, because a large chunk of it was him sorting out beefs with contemporaries. And I really don't think that the Anglo publishing history really cares what you think about his conception of a number.
If twitch pogs approached it the same way they approach Star Wars and 40K lore it wouldn't be all that impenetrable
Motherfuckers will literally be like "I spent 100 hours learning the economic system of Eurpoa Universalis 4, and now I'll spend another 100 hours beating the tutorial" but figuring out the context of Marx's 18th of Brumaire apparently requires one to be at the height of academic excellence
I'm gonna be real, the only real difficult work of Marx is Capital vol 1 and maybe parts of Vol 3, other than that it's pretty easy to get the gist of what's going on
honestly, yeah. i'm not sure why a lot of people here are acting like Marx is incredibly tough, it's really not. the english isn't too archaic either, Shakespeare is way, way harder to read. some more recent academics like Teubner or Luhmann are much, much harder to read than Marx. they are a lot more of a slog to get through too.
:cri: 18th of brumaire is hard to read with the context :cri:
Yeah the beefs really piss me off. Lenin is like that too - like you need to go look up some shithead who was relegated to the dustbin of history 90 years ago to get necessary context if you wanna understand the basic thrust of the essay. At the very least, modern editors should include an appendix with a summary so you're not totally lost.
I've found some of Lenin to be impenetrable. Like. if you read What is to Be Done without expert knowledge of 1920s Russian newspapers you're going to have a bad time. But State and Revolution is excellent and actually fun to read. Quotations from Mao is pretty digestible too. I've read a few works of Stalin and I don't remember it being boring but that's mostly because I don't remember it.
What is to be Done is fun because it's an early 20th century reaction video equivalent
without expert knowledge of 1920s Russian newspapers
and you call yourself a leftist
reading anything from someone with a radically different cultural context than a 21st century anglophone is going to be difficult. and if you want to access ideas from outside of total neoliberal hegemony, you are going to have to read such writing. there is no way around it. you're a pacified subject of the last evil empire, and you can do nothing before you form yourself into a weapon against it.
I found the audiobooks a lot more understandable and approachable. Maybe it's just how my brain works, but I was able to follow along a lot easier that way. The wording didn't seem so difficult to listen to, where I was otherwise getting lost.
dunno, i forced myself to read through capital v1 because of org educational requirements and still got a ton out of it. admittedly i'd already read a bunch of capital illustrated, capital abridged books before that, which made it easier imo and of course there is a ton that i didn't get and ill have to re-read w/ footnotes, patience etc, but i was actually surprised that a quick read of capital is a) possible b) worth it. now hegel on the other hand...
Yes, you should read Marx and watching a twitch stream is not a substitute for reading Marx. But also Marx's books are not a substitute for a twitch stream that promotes Marxism. They don't have the same promotional capacity. No person is going to accidentally decide read Das Capital in the same way that they would click on a twitch stream. Twitch streamers who promote Marxism are good and they are not telling you not to read Marx.
Anything that promotes Marxism is good. I have seen plenty of streamers who talk about Marxism or Anarchism on stream and I don't remember any of them saying "don't read theory".
That is what I am saying. This post is implying that promoters of Marxism on twitch are feds.
Twitch streamers who promote Marxism
Nope don't exist
and they are not telling you not to read Marx.
lmao there are so many twitch streamers who literally say don't do that
lol how the fuck is it controversial to say twitch (even the leftie kind) promotes garbage politics and toxic mindsets, come on bro I watch the shit all the time don't piss on me and tell me it's raining
Bro what are you talking about just because we're in a giant drought doesn't mean you're feeling the rain right now.
Also it's warm rain because it's like 120 degrees and by lawn is spontaneously combusting.
There are plenty of people on twitch who promote Marxism and encourage reading theory. Central_Committee regularly tells his viewers to read theory. Another example is LivAgar, she regularly talks about theory on stream and tells her viewers to read theory.
Ok .01% of Twitch streamers promote Marxism, yipee! :squidward-chill:
That he's implying that twitch streams which promote Marxism are bad just because they are on twitch. Even in the title, he's saying that old PBS shows from his childhood are superior to what kids like to watch now. It's near boomer posting.
I think people should read Marx. I also think twitch streamers that promote Marxism are good too.
he’s saying that old PBS shows from his childhood are superior to what kids like to watch now
Call me a boomer but PBS had some great shows.
Reading Rainbow was by far one of my favorites, and I wish something like that still existed. Maybe someone could make a leftist version for youtube/meanstv/whatever else?
That he’s implying that twitch streams which promote Marxism are bad just because they are on twitch. Even in the title, he’s saying that old PBS shows from his childhood are superior to what kids like to watch now
:yes-chad: :yes-comm: :yes-sicko: :geordi-yes:
Just so we’re clear, Reading Rainbow and Hasan Piker have very different target audiences
Have you ever seen his chat, love the guy, but Hasan is essentially a glorified daycare provider for a bunch of disillusioned 17-year-old socdems
The target audience for Reading Rainbow is the same as Hasan's, screen addled youngsters who refuse to read
I genuinely don’t watch him because I find live streaming an extremely annoying way to consume content, but 17 year old socdems are not literal 3 year olds
I watched Reading Rainbow as an 9-year-old :side-eye-1: :side-eye-2:
In one post you say you watch Hasan all the time. In this post you say his stream is a daycare for 17 year old libs. If his target audience is 17 year old libs, why do you watch him? Why are you implying that he's recommended by feds when you watch him?
Did you get banned from his chat?
If his target audience is 17 year old libs, why do you watch him
because everyone on this site is a lib keep up
Brother in christ over here playing true detective season one with this thread
Nephew I've been talking about Twitch in general, Hasan is simply a gold nugget in a turd pile
I don't understand how people in online left circles managed to make reading theory such a polarizing thing. There are people who have weird contempt for it and think any reference to theory is "dogmatism", and people who needlessly shit on any real-world movements that don't match the theory they read.
It's a superstitious leftover of liberal conditioning, some people treat socialist literature like it's the Necronomicon, that if they read too deeply or too long something essential about them will be altered, that their personality will shift to the point they can no longer relate to family or friends, for many of them its more comfortable to simply embrace an online identitarian posting style "socdem, demsoc, Trot, etc" and engage the world thru memes, historical osmosis, and intuition, it's complete nonsense and naturally leads to splintering, infighting, and polarization
The crux of socialist literature is the construction of a set of analytic tools and frameworks that can allow one to successfully study, predict, and interpret the specific historical socio-economic reality we know as capitalism, it's an ongoing evolutionary process built brick by brick, but some people prefer to stumble around in the dark accidentally rediscovering insights that were analyzed, practiced and made redundant a century ago
you mean this? https://mangadex.org/title/9ad278ad-a3a5-4d47-a610-639c4473ca5e/das-kapital-variety-art-works
Lool there are multiple ones that's the funniest shit then because no not that one.
The absolute boomer energy exuding from this post lmao, did people use to salute the flag and pull up their pants too when you were growing up OP
Boomer energy my butthole this is pure early 2000s adhd toonami energy
If a boomie saw reading rainbow they'd be like "who is this urban man brainwashing my kid with commie dr.seuss books"
I think that as time goes on the obviousness of streamers as representing the ruling class will make itself clearer and clearer. As the contradictions tighten and tighten it becomes necessary for media to become more and more obvious, this doesn't just apply to news media, it applies to new media as well.
You could catch most of these streamers out with something in interview format that does not allow debate and forces them to state policy positions. It will get harder for them to hide, and in the meantime they are contributing to the growth of the left.
Full-time streamers without a side gig aren't proletarian. Their content simply reflects their class. The poorest ones are artisans, workers who own their own means of production while the richest ones are bourgeois. The ones that make it will go on to become petty bourgeois through the hiring of additional staff while the ones that don't are forced to take up side gigs or find a day job, becoming proletarians.
I agree. And as the contradictions tighten they will get louder and louder about protecting their class interests.
The thing is with old news media vs the new media is that the news media has a layer of abstraction that hides class and presents institutional respectability. The news is trusted because others trust it because they've been around a long time and have organisational endorsement from organisations, politicians and so on and so forth.
Streamers do not have this. There is no abstraction between their class interests and the audience. When things head into crises there will be A LOT of streamers that make their class look very very bad.
What they do have however that the old news media does not have is the parasocial relationship effect. I think this however is unlikely to continue carrying weight among older audiences, I don't think there will be 30+ year old Mr Beast fans fanboying out over him cutting the ribbon at restaurant number 300.
As time goes on this crowd of "influencers" that represent the bourgeoisie with none of the strategy of backroom news media will end up being a significant liability rather than a good thing for them.
What we're going to see is a phasing out of personalities and their replacement with someone new more frequently. These streaming groups are still managed and coordinated through backrooms. The important thing for the parasocial relationship isn't the individual streamer, but the style of their content which quickly becomes a commodity as they employ more and more production staff.
This cultural commodity can now be farmed out en mass to create a bumper crop of similar content of which 99% will fizzle and die while one or two that match the ideological requirements succeed.
They'll either keep banning these retired personalities, or they'll kill them by pushing the new thing and driving them back to obscurity. We've already seen this happen a ton with some of the old New Media groups (Smosh, Vlog Brothers, Rhett and Link, Machinima, etc) where they either died or kinda disappeared from the limelight while absorbing new content into their ideological umbrella. I think all of those groups now own a huge number of channels through contracts and such. Except Machinima which I think actually exploded.
So you're imagining something like idol culture taking over? I could see that happening. Hololive is the current major successful one. I the old "new media groups" all failed because they still relied on some element of these individuals as major organisers and the organisational structure to self-perpetuate and bring up new icons was never constructed, once they aged up they got bored because they didn't need more money and never adapted to changing trends because they were comfortable just playing games.
I could see that happening but I have not yet seen a western company with the organisational capacity to not fizzle out. Eastern companies oriented around idol culture do much better with this.
cw/ twitch bans
Vaush was banned for saying the US military should invade Israel and possibly also antisemitic comments. Haz was banned for spreading russian misinformation. The reason's for Destiny last ban are unknown but he was originally departnered for saying chuds should run over leftist protestors with their cars.
They all stream on youtube now. Before being banned, Haz had an average 400 live viewers and Vaush had 600. Those people are not really leftists and I don't think I would consider them to be leftist streamers.
These are some top streamers that do political coverage that I like. There are some more that I like that have far less live viewers. I've found around 40 twitch streamers who talk about leftist politics and have between 10 to 100 average live viewers.
Average Live viewers
33000 HasanAbi - Hasan "America Deserved 9/11" Piker, News Coverage
2200 Central_Committee - Mike from PA, DSA organizer
944 Keffals - Transgender activist
480 LivAgar - Liv talks about political theory and memes
330 TheSerfsTV - News Coverage and Politics
280 chapotraphouse - Obligatory. Mostly chapo FYM crew watching 'dudes rock' type videos. Sometimes Matt Christman rants. Sometimes Felix playing fortnite.
Between the Lions was cool. I like to joke that the mom from that show would sneak marxist literature to the kids.
idk it's still kind of like that where I live. Wifi is trash and rolling blackouts are common, so it's largely local stage events, local TV, and radio to keep people entertained. People are largely illiterate here because of the language gap
Listen to this dudebro "leftist" who used to visit a brothel owned by sex traffickers
The brothel that Hasan went to was raided for tax evasion, not sex trafficking. Don't be a SWERF.
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/hasan-piker-stream-artemis-brothel-debate/
The brothel is not owned or run by the Hell's Angels. The article says that. The brothel was not charged with sex trafficking.
The women in the article are defending Hasan. The sex worker women in the article are defending Hasan. Ana Valens, a news reporter for sex work, is defending Hasan. Violeta Félix, a NYC-based dominatrix, is defending Hasan. Princess Poison, a Texas-based dominatrix, is defending Hasan. SX Noir, president of Women of Sex Tech who has engaged in sex work activism, is defending Hasan.
Lmao. I am not going to listen to Americans defend Hasan when Hells Angels, a neo Nazi biker gang, forces migrant women into forced prostitution in Germany and even taking the money off of those women.
every amerikkkan is a member of hell's angels, the most powerful gang in north amerikkka
how do people know he even went to a brothel who fucking talks about that shit
The reactionary here is you. Equating forced prostitution by a neo Nazi gang with voluntary sex work.
Hasan went there in 2010.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/88nwwb/hasan-piker-brothel-sex-work-twitch
"Piker said that the clip is from a few months ago, but his visit to Artemis was around 2010."
And you are seriously going to call me a SWERF and then say that "since the charges were dropped, they are ok"? Lmao.
Famously the best way to support sex workers is to shame and demonize their clients with the aim of preventing sex workers from being able to pursue their trade from the demand end. Trust me bro that's what sex workers want from us, that's solidarity.
Just leave sex workers alone dude they don't need to you have A Righteous Opinion about their trade just fight for decriminalization and look to them to see what they need from you
I had Power Rangers and Beast Wars. We are not the same.
Edit: beast wars did have a lion transformer iirc, so maybe we're not so different?
